Showing posts with label nurse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nurse. Show all posts

Friday, June 7, 2019

Alabama Photos of the Day: Two Nurses at Camp Sheridan

In late July 1917 construction began on a 4000 acre site three miles from downtown Montgomery. The facility was Camp Sheridan, one of several U.S. Army bases built in Alabama as the nation prepared to enter World War I. Between August and October 30,000 men of the 37th Infantry Division from Ohio arrived; they left for France in June 1918. The 9th Infantry Division replaced it and remained until their unit was deactivated in February 1919. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author and future husband of Zelda, was a lieutenant in the 9th. You can read more details in Martin T. Olliff's account of the camp here. The camp was named for Civil War Union cavalry commander General Phil Sheridan.

The first photo here shows two unidentified nurses at Camp Sheridan. More comments below.

You can find many photos and documents related to Camp Sheridan at Alabama Mosaic






The nurse on the left has a Red Cross pin on her lapel. Is she Florence Birch? See below.

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections




Postcard of the base hospital. Camp Sheridan also had over 300 mess halls, 300 bath houses, a post office, 40 warehouses, a gym and a library. Four thousand tents with wood floors housed the soldiers. 

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections



Nurse Florence Goldie Birch at Camp Sheridan ca 1918-1919. Is she the woman on the left in the first photograph?

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections



Surgeons operating at Camp Sheridan Hospital ca. 1917-19. The anesthetist at the head of the table may have been a male nurse. Is that a can of ether sitting on the table behind him?

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections



Wounded men reading on the porch of the hospital barracks at Camp Sheridan ca. 1917-19

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections




Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections


Florence had her nurse training at Good Samaritan Hospital Training School in Lexington, Kentucky. Her Red Cross card is dated July 22, 1918, and misspells her middle name. 

Florence married Royal Edward Lynn sometime after the war; they settled in Oklahoma and had two children. She died in 1984 and is buried in Enid, Oklahoma.






Source: Find-A-Grave; photo by David Schram












Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Birmingham Photo of the Day (70): Two Nurses at Norwood Clinic

Birmingham physician Charles Carraway opened a sixteen bed infirmary in Pratt City in 1908. Nearly a decade later he opened a larger facility in the Norwood neighborhood. By 1926 other physicians had joined him and the Norwood Clinic was incorporated. A nursing wing was added in 1949; other additions and expansions occurred in 1957, 1961 and 1974. Carraway stepped down as board chairman in 1957 and was replaced by his surgeon son Ben. At that time the name was changed to Carraway Methodist Medical Center. The elder Carraway died in 1963, his son in 1999.

Fortunately, they did not live to see the sad fate of the hospital. By 2001 the physicians' group owner began to seek a buyer, but not finding one had to file for bankruptcy in September 2006. Another group of physicians purchased the facility; it was  unable to keep it afloat. The huge 617-bed hospital closed for good on Halloween 2008. Efforts to re-purpose the site have so far been unsuccessful. 

You can visit photos of the ruin via Abandoned Southeast. A video visit is available on YouTube.

The photo below shows two nurses at what was probably Norwood Clinic in the 1940's. The park bench on the left and the visiting hours sign perhaps indicates an outdoor area at the hospital available for both patients and staff. 

Just for fun I've also included below a number of advertisements for Coca Cola that feature nurses. Most are probably from the 1950's and rely on growing popular attitudes about the competency of the nursing profession.  

A good history is Anita Smith's 1996 book Culture of Excellence: A History of Carraway Methodist Medical Center. 2 vols. 





Photo by Charles Preston

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections 





Physicians Medical Center Carraway at the time it closed in October 2008

Source: BhamWiki





Charles Carraway, M.D., about 1920

Source: Wikipedia

































This article examines the use of nurses as authority figures in advertising after
World War II: 


Johnson E. "Who would know better than the girls in white?" Nurses as experts in
postwar magazine advertising, 1945-1950. Nursing History Review. 2012;20:46-71

American advertising in the period immediately following the Second World War
portrayed nurses as trusted advisers and capable professionals and frequently
pictured them performing skilled work, including dispensing medicine and
assisting in surgery. Advertisements published in a range of magazines whose
target audiences varied by gender, race, age, and class show that nurses in
postwar advertisements embodied two broad categories of representation: (a)
medical authority, scientific progress, and hospital cleanliness; and (b)
feminine expertise, especially in female and family health. Typically portrayed
as young white women--although older nurses were occasionally depicted and black 
nurses appeared in advertisements intended for black audiences-nurses were
especially prominent in advertisements for menstrual and beauty products, as well
as products related to children's health. Although previous scholarly
examinations of nurses in postwar mass media have emphasized their portrayal as
hypersexual and incompetent, this investigation posits postwar advertising as a
forum that emphasized nurses' professionalism, as well as complex expectations
surrounding women's professional and domestic roles.